


GRADE A

by deathofglitter



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: "reality with set dressing", Disturbing Themes, Gen, Psychological Horror, THIS IS A CANNIBALISM AU., as described by my friend, human cattle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathofglitter/pseuds/deathofglitter
Summary: He imagines the numbness that overtakes his leg as blossoms flowing through his veins, he imagines the way Rose’s hand leaves his as the stem of an unsuspecting flower cut in the garden, preserved in a vase.Bouquets are but gift-wrapped corpses, Rose laughs. Fake flowers do the job just as well.
Relationships: Dande | Leon & Rose | Chairman Rose
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	GRADE A

**Author's Note:**

> in case you didn't read the tags -- this is a psychological horror fic. you have been fairly warned! this is an au where humans are put into a registry from the ages of 5-18 to potentially be bought and used as livestock. 
> 
> leon is one such individual.

“Do you know what the most tender part of the body is?”

_ You don’t know, and you don’t really feel a need to ask, because you remember the farm.  _

_ You remember the farm, Tauros, castrated (some people make good use of the testicles, you heard), three tails, trailing listlessly, they huff, rings dangling from wide nostrils. Wooloo. Never name an animal you later plan to butcher, the farmkeeper warned, Hop clutches the ball of wool as if it, too, knew its eventual fate. They never did eat Flossy. You’ve been signed up since you were born. You’re not eligible to be bought until five years of age, preschool, his classmates keep disappearing. Something about young meat, Leon doesn’t understand the words. Something about young meat, his teacher disappears halfway through the year. He can’t recall his face. There are children with brands upon their necks and he reaches to the back of his own to ensure that one has not mystically appeared in his sleep. He watches wordlessly as the brandless kids gouge bloody holes into their peers with sharpened sticks. Voices behind him— enrichment for their minds, keep them occupied in the meantime. No homework, Leon thinks, they’re so lucky, Leon thinks, disappear, one by one. Classmates squealing, pointed wood. You have to get them started early, a woman mutters. You have to get them started early. He does not grab a stick.  _

“..Right  _ here.” _

Leon jumps, and Leon whips around, and quite suddenly, he misses the familiar weight of his cape pressed around his shoulders, cloaked— public figure more than enough of the time, it did him well to take a moment to himself in the locker rooms. Familiar weight.  _ Ethically sourced,  _ Rose beamed, he runs his hands through the tufted pelt that lines the edges of thick red velvet, ethically sourced,  _ what were you before you were draped around me.  _ Second skin. Something about a butchering. Something about a sheep in wolf’s clothing—  _ Flossy _ — named livestock, _ is he named livestock—  _ probably not,  _ my mother gave me my name, there were dandelions and bluebells outside our house. I don’t know why she didn’t just call Hop Bluebell,  _ his mind wanders, his mind does not pause upon the question of whether or not the way practiced fingers knead into his legs was  _ appropriate.  _ Sending uncomfortable sparks, he shifts, and Rose follows. Chases dutifully, all with delicate charm. 

Rose’s hand is as smooth as it is calloused, and Leon’s breath hitches within his throat— it rides up beneath the softness of his thigh, presses a thumb, leisurely, into the tendon that rides along the muscle, still hard from having stood for hours on end,  _ the match was grueling—  _ snapped out of his stupor, why are you pretending you are anywhere but here and now, why are you pretending,  _ why am I pretending- _

“..Chairman?” His voice wavers, head turns, meeting eyes too bright. Manufactured glimmer, hands upon a manufactured hero,  _ I want to see you bloom, Leon,  _ he had smiled, brandishing a butcher’s knife. 

“ _ Biceps femoris, _ ” Rose replies, as if that were the logical response, pressing an index finger, works his way within tissue, separating lobes of muscle with  _ too much ease (butcher’s knife, butcher’s knife, Hop is petting Flossy and mom’s sizing her up)  _ and he shudders, he knows  _ better  _ than to move, bloom,  _ whatever  _ he wanted, whatever he wants,  _ too too too too too young thrown in the registry got to achieve your dreams before you died love you so much honey love you so so much!!! dreams about pink and red and the marbling in this steak is exquisite- _

“Leon.”

..He snaps back. He does not remember when it is he drifted, he doesn’t remember when it was that he reverted— Deerling, headlights, the headlights stare back. Their irises burn green circles into his mind. 

“Would you sit still for me?”

_..Saw the fancy people at the other table.. banquet was it yeah banquet they had a they had a they had a it looked like steak.. it looked like steak they offered me a piece but I said no thank you I was all filled up with pasta the Chairman kept smiling when I ate and his business partners.. I don’t know, they’re all really old they’re all really pale and there’s a card on the ground and I don’t know what possessed me to pick it up there was a card on the ground and I don’t know what possessed me to pick it up _

  
  


**ASTER LANE**

**MALE, 22, VOLUNTARY OPT-IN**

_..Small picture in the corner, _

_ it’s like a license, _

_ the portrait of a young man, _

_ smiling, glasses too boxy for his face. _

_ there are freckles cast across milky skin _

_ there is a marker beneath the image  _

_ and it reads: _

**GRADE A**

**Hey there! If you’re reading this, you probably just took a big bite out of me, haha! It’s all good! My name was Aster. I was 22 years old, an aspiring business major, and I chose to opt-in to support my family! I have left behind my wonderful girlfriend, my two brothers, and my hard-working mother! I was born off of Stow-on-Side, and I lived there my whole life. I enjoyed exercising, spending time with my family, of course, and doing all that I could to**

_ There are things that you know and  _

_ things that are quite suddenly and _

_ quite blindingly real.  _

***MESSAGE WRITTEN POSTHUMOUSLY BY AN APPROVED EDITOR**

**DISCLAIMER: ANY WORDS UPON THIS CARD**

**ARE IN NO WAY AN ENDORSEMENT**

**ON BEHALF OF MR. ASTER LANE (19XX-20XX)**

**NOR DO THEY REPRESENT THE THOUGHTS OR OPINIONS**

**OF THE DECEASED INDIVIDUAL.**

  
  


The headlights stare back, and from their blinding brightness, they stretch out an arm, welcoming, clad in gray— the equilibrium between black, white,  _ not everyone who chooses to do so as an adult necessarily wants to, but like any business, there are buyers, my boy.  _ Deerling, caught in the heart of the gray that rocks behind your skull after death (at least, he would assume, he read in a paper once-- the bolt they place to your skull before the slaughter, if your buyer is merciful. Painless. Small gray machine, maybe the end is all gray, he wondered, the first day he cried within the back of the truck, maybe the end is all gray, he wondered, staring at the ridges in steel, windowless walls.

“What are you..” Leon’s voice wavers, Leon is still holding a card in his hand,  _ Aster Lane,  _ the name burned like an imprint into his mind. Rose’s office is quiet, adorned in such little gaudiness. A billionaire, opting for minimal grays and the only indulgence of a stark, crushed velvet, glowing red couch. The box upon his desk is small and trimmed with chestnut wood, and Rose is wordless as he walks to retrieve it delicately within a hand. The imprint of his thumbs burn the undersides of his thighs. The imprint of his hands sear gray marks into his mind. Rose sits beside him, and Leon hardly registers the dip in the couch as the man carves his place into (him) the cushion. Red, glimmering, run your hand along it the wrong way, watch the velvet’s protest,  _ meat taken with protest and resentment is always so bitter,  _ a voice echoes within his skull. He does not recall its origin.

“Look carefully, Leon.” Rose’s voice is honey--  _ marinade, put it in a bag, let the scientific name for a muscle I can’t remember sit and absorb the sweetness before you--  _ “You see these, yes?”

He looks to Rose’s face, and then to the collection of small, neat cylinders, marked from bottom to top with thin black lines, something along the front of them shielded in a small case of what looked to be a black leather sleeve. Pale liquid trembled within as Rose sets the case upon his lap, and curiously, Leon reaches down to pluck a cylinder from the inside. Red velvet.

_..His chips are cold. Rose eats abundantly. Fancy sandwich, he can’t remember the name of, au jus, he dips it in the brownish liquid in a little cup beside his plate. The napkins are dark red. The chips are adorned with fancy cheese and garlic salt. There is a small bowl of soup beside him, split pea, it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough.. _

_ Leon’s hunger is cold and brewing within him, and the napkins, dark red, make the silver of his spoon look to be a dull gray. His throat is tight. His throat had been tight for a day, now, it had been tight, as his mother looked away as they loaded him into the back of the truck. As his brother, too young, far too young to understand, laughed at Leon’s crazed, sudden terror, as he fought and spit and was quite unceremoniously thrown into the back, upon a soft, gray cushion. The doors close. Postwick is a lifetime away.  _

_ “..Is it not to your liking?” _

_ His head bolts up, styled tufts off the sides of it bouncing at the motion, and Rose is looking to him with green eyes far too warm for their intentions with him. Leon clutches his arm, and Rose dabs gently upon perfectly-landscaped facial hair. Clear droplets caught between black hairs. Dewdrops, wiped away by the predator, Leon pictures his blood upon his face. Leon pictures his blood upon the napkin. He realizes, very shortly, the purpose of their color. _

_ “I’m not..” Leon bites his tongue. Leon tries not to think of someone else biting his tongue. “I’m not allowed to.. Is this a..” _

_ “A test?” _

_ Leon freezes, as Rose sets the napkin down, chuckles kindly, too kindly, his intentions, his.. _

_ (Starches spoil the meat and leave the body to produce toxic fats!) _

_ (..Leon does not know the informational purpose the pamphlet in the back of the truck serves, all easy-to-read little blurbs surrounding cartoon, smiling fruits and vegetables. You want to stay nice and healthy for your buyer! Remember, your purpose is to bring a smile to their face!) _

**PAMPHLET APPROVED BY THE ETHICAL CONSUMPTION BOARD**

**20XX**

**PAMPHLET DESIGNED FOR INVOLUNTARY OPT-INS, AGE 5-12**

_ A test. I was right, I was right, I was.. _

_ “Hardly!” Rose grins. Places a hand upon his cheek, strokes the patch beneath his lip with a thumb. “You know, I do not plan to use you as food. I thought that that was apparent enough.” _

_ Rose’s finger moves to the lock of hair dangling off the side of his head. Twirls a finger around it, in a clearly-rehearsed habit. The ice in Leon’s chest goes from malignant to benign, he does not anticipate the reality that it will never leave him, but the cold grows easier to live with-- _

_ “Eat. You have been through a lot, my boy. I’m afraid I could have been a lot more blatant in stating my intent, but I could not allow such a promising young man in the system fail to achieve the dreams he is so clearly chasing with vigor, all for the sake of filling a hungry stomach with young meat.” _

_ Leon remembers to breathe, and his lungs shudder, pushing the ball of ice aside, he feels heat trickle upon his face, he feels a tear hit his lip, he doesn’t remember when he started crying. There’s a fat teardrop upon the chips, he glances down, watches it slide off the top of the small mound.  _

_ “Would you like to come back to the penthouse, Leon? Would you like to see your new room? Come here. Allow me to make you dinner. You deserve to change, I.. goodness, I have misjudged how difficult this must have been for you. You had so much at stake. You had so much at stake, but you will be alright, now. You will be alright.” _

_ Postwick is a lifetime away. _

“Be careful, now,” Rose warns, and he steadies Leon’s hand with a swift motion, pointing the leather seal downward, pressing a thumb slightly enough into the tendons of his hand that Leon noted the way they shifted beneath his touch. Were they shaking? Why would his hands be..

“I want you to slide off the tip. Carefully, do not drop it, alright?”

Rose’s eyes are warm. Rose’s eyes are wide. Rose’s eyes are too wide. The ice in his chest is benign, widened pupils, black and malignant. He chooses not to believe. Fingers sliding along the leather, thin silver, lustrous and bright, is revealed beneath its shell, feeding into a sharp tip, he--

“Are you afraid of needles, Leon?”

_..Mom said they might shoot you up with chemicals but it’s alright, because you’re not going to eat me, right-- she said that sometimes the.. Mean ones like to shoot you up with drugs that make you fat and soft and delicious and-- _

“..No,” Leon lies.

“Good.” A smile stretches across Rose’s face, his mustache upturned as a hand places itself upon his shoulder and pushes him against the back of the couch. The ice budges his lungs, the ice flattens his lungs, Leon cannot breathe, he doesn’t want to believe, he doesn’t want to believe--

“Wait-” He blurts out, he shakes against the place where his back alights. “Y- you’re not going to..”

“Ah. Shoot you up with those growth hormones, hm? Please, dear. I am not so unforgiving!”

_ Dear,  _ the word echoes within his mind, gently bouncing off the edges of neurons firing unadulterated fear throughout the branches of his spine,  _ anatomy class.. Spent too long wondering which part of him would be cut up, can’t remember the names of these all these muscles why can’t I remember their names-- _

“It is a local anesthetic. Here. Take my hand. I promise you will be alright.”

_ Dear,  _ he settles upon, his hand quivers, it is small and it is pale and it is closed gently within Rose’s palm.  _ Dad was an opt-in and I didn’t want to be doomed to this life but look where that-- _

The syringe is slid delicately from his hand. Rose squeezes his palm. Strong, reassuring, the ice allows some oxygen into his system. Rose leans in, and smells so overwhelmingly of flowers Leon makes an attempt not to choke. He imagines them blooming in his nostrils, he imagines them blooming in his eyes, he imagines them blooming out of the pinprick in the side of his thigh to where a needle surely slides in, and his grip tightens. As does Rose’s. He imagines them blooming from the space between their hands. He imagines the numbness that overtakes his leg as blossoms flowing through his veins, he imagines the way Rose’s hand leaves his as the stem of an unsuspecting flower cut in the garden, preserved in a vase.  _ Bouquets are but gift-wrapped corpses, Rose laughs. Fake flowers do the job just as well.  _

“What are you..”

_ Curled in the back of the truck. He tries to punch a hole through the face of a smiling Nanab berry. The pamphlet is laminated, there are wrinkles where it looks to be someone had once done the same. His tears sink black into the fabric beneath him. _

“I am allowing you a privilege very few get to experience,” Rose’s voice, honey. He imagines it spilling over him, he imagines the marinade bag, he saved him, didn’t he? “Here.”

His breath catches, as Rose slides an elegant knife from the inside of his coat. Not serrated- rather frighteningly sleek. Sharp. The tip glimmers silver, Leon, transfixed, headlights,  _ young meat.  _ Headlights. Staring back at him. He is counting the veins in his eyes illuminated by the incoming truck that will certainly lead to his death. Thrown in the back of it. Championship cup.  _ At least I got that far,  _ he had wondered. 

_ Young meat. _

A hand is squeezing his shoulder. A knife is sliding toward his thigh, and Leon thinks that he understands, now, why the couch is red. Leon thinks that he understands the ways in which Rose’s hand trembles, and his body braces for pain, braces for impact-- ready to die a mangled and mutilated death upon contact, eyes shut tight. Was he lying for his sake? Was this always to end so horrifically? Leon shakes, Leon cannot feel his thigh, there are weeds in his lungs and he is choking on dandelion puffs. He imagines the seeds flying out his mouth, a plea for help that will not be spoken. He has no right to speak it.  _ Please, please, please, make it quick.. _

“..There. All done.”

The headlights pull away. A gentle tug upon his thigh, painless.

“Look,” Rose whispers, and though his body screams to not  _ look _ the same way as one would not want to look toward the bloody aftermath of a Pokemon caught in the middle of a highway, he squints. 

A dangling, quickly-paling, thin sheet of flesh sways lazily in front of his eye. The inside of it a warm, reddish color. Fresh blood. He can’t feel anything, he can’t..

Rose moves it away in seconds. Places it upon a black plate that Leon did not register before upon the table, chestnut trim, in front of them. The box of syringes lays open beside it. There is a small, black towel underneath his thigh. Momentarily, he marvels at the skin exposed beneath. Not enough to hit vulnerable muscle, but why would he..

“Here you are,” Rose taps his shoulder, and Leon turns, eyes the sliver in his finger, seemingly cut into two. The sliding of the knife made no imprint in the heaviness of the air. “Take a bite. You were labeled Grade A, you know! Quite the Champion, you are. It would be a waste not to try you, at least once. Besides, it is what you deserve. You have done wonderfully, Leon, my dear. Absolutely  _ wonderfully.” _

Beedrill drowned in honey, Leon’s hand reaches forward, grasps slimy, still-warm skin between a thumb and index finger, slides along the inside of it, feels veins and vessels yielding beneath his touch, revulsion is not an emotion he is sure he can feel.  _ You have done wonderfully,  _ honey fills his skull. His brain does not know to gasp for air.  _ Leon, my dear,  _ wetness touches upon his lips, and then peach-fuzz skin into his mouth, he chews, the ice persists. 

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to laura for enabling my crazy tendencies in writing. this was an absolute blast to interpret, and I would love any comments or critique you have on my cannibal prose (lol)
> 
> keep an eye out for the second chapter!


End file.
